The crematorium in Litoměřice, part of the branch of the former Flossenbürg concentration camp in World War II, currently administered by the Terezín Memorial, hosted a lecture and a guided tour of this memorial site for the public on April 6, 2023. The main speakers at the event were PhDr. Ivana Rapavá, Ph.D., head of the Terezín Memorial´s Department of History, and Mgr. Tomáš Gol, a Memorial historian.
The program commenced with a lecture by Ivan Rapavá tracing the postwar history of the upkeep of this object, entered on the list of cultural monuments in the 1960s. The audiences heard many interesting facts about the management of the building after World War II, about the plans being prepared but mostly never materialized (for instance an envisioned construction of a road interlinking the crematorium with an entrance to the former underground factory Richard) etc.
Tomáš Gol linked up to the lecture delivered by his colleague by describing the circumstances associated not only with the operation of the crematorium itself, but also explaining the rationale behind the construction of Nazi underground factories, and hence behind building the Richard underground factory. He also focused on the interconnection between the Nazi sites of persecution in Litoměřice and Terezín, traced the history of the Litoměřice branch of the Flossenbürg concentration camp, describing the operation of the camp and the living conditions of its inmates.
The crematorium in Litoměřice is not normally open to the public. Information on an eventual visit to the object can be found on the Terezín Memorial´s website.
If you are interested, you can watch the whole event on the YouTube channel of the Terezín Memorial. It is in the Czech language only.
Naděžda Seifertová
